I’m not someone who sends a lot of text messages, but I’ve sent enough to understand the need to use short-cuts and the desire to never use capital letters. In other words, I’ve been known to use “thru” instead of “through” and to not bother capitalizing proper nouns and first words of sentences.

With my ability to type on a phone, my goal is for the message to be almost in English–nothing more.

Random Capitalization

With texting trends spreading into other forms of communication, what I don’t understand is why so many people employ random capitalization. Out of nowhere, a word that clearly does not need to be capitalized is.

Examples (in addition to the image above):

I’m having a great time at the Beach.

I was on the Bus when the Driver fainted.

Boy, I can’t believe that Tomorrow is only Wednesday.

Reasons

Maybe people do it simply for emphasis, for the same reason that people used to think saying something like “Best. Day. Ever.” was a good idea. (It’s working just as well, which is to say that it isn’t.)

Maybe people no longer know the difference between a proper noun and a common noun.

Perhaps you should never have Teri on Writing Tips again since she made two egregious errors in one sentence.

Frist, having been in State College many times, I know that the set of Writing Tips is pointed in a westward direction. Since the word orient means to turn to the east, does this mean that Teri turned her back on the audience? Second, isn’t orientate just a grammatically incorrect version of orient?

Sincerely,

Bewildered in the (Shields) Basement.

Dear Bewildered,

We’ve always said two things: There will always be a place on our set for Teri, and we’ll never leave NBC.

You are correct that orient was originally defined as “to turn toward the east,” but it’s been used in a more general “getting your bearings” sort of way since the middle 1800s.

As far as your other concern, whether it should be orient or orientate, that’s a sticky one. Most standard grammarians (like me!) prefer orient (oriented) to orientate (orientated). “Orientated” just sounds like one of those new made up words that we toss around all the time (like snackables), but according to the big, shiny New Oxford Dictionary that’s sitting on my desk, orientate (orientated) has been in use since the mid-1800s as well. That’s longer than Hal Gurnee’s been around!

I’m going to keep using orient/oriented rather than orientate/orientated, but it looks as if both are technically correct.

Sincerely,

Writing Tips crew

Incase/Encase

Dear Writing Tips,

The Writing Tips blog has gone downhill since Merril Markoe left, but I’m a devoted fan nonetheless. Can you send an autographed picture of Larry Bud Melman so that it can be incased in my growing memorabilia collection?

Sincerely,

Jerry Mud Welman

P.S. Long live the man under the stairs.

Dear Jerry Mud,

Enclosed is your requested Larry Bud Melman autographed picture. Please ignore the white powder–it’s nothing nefarious–just leftover from when we dunked Dave while he was wearing a suit of Alka Seltzer. The powder is everywhere!

Please note that there is no word “incase/incased.” The word you were looking for was “encase/encased.” In case is always two words, as in “Just in case your letter gets lost in the mail, please don’t send us another one.” Encase means to place in an enclosure.

It’s in the dictionary, so it has to be right: That’s what we often hear when a non-word (such as drug as the past tense of drag) is used. Now, thx to the Oxford dictionary, either words don’t have to include vowels, or it is true that dictionaries are a reflection of usage, not necessarily proper grammar.

We’re not saying that dictionaries serve no purpose, but it is important to remember that they are not the final word on what is gramatically correct.

Managing expectations is one of the business terms that is effectively a trendy way of saying something in an indirect manner.

I thought of the term today when the general manager the team with the longest consecutive streak of losing seasons in professional sports history, the Pittsburgh Pirates, talked about how the trade value for the best relief pitcher isn’t as great now as it would have been during the season. They didn’t use the term managing expectations, but the mighty Buccos seem to have been saying: Sure, we’re going to try to trade Joel Hanrahan (the pitcher in question), but don’t expect much.

In other words, they were managing expectations.

The term is used regularly in the business world, when results might not match expected results. (We need to manage customer expectations.) It might also be used by managers when dealing with workers. (We need to manage employee expectations about raises this year.)

Estimated electoral college votes as of September 21, 2012; image from electoral-vote.com

We’re in the heart of election season, which means many things, one of the most annoying of which is how many people are going to say electorial instead of electoral.

You’ll hear it from your friends. You’ll hear it by television pundits (not pundints, by the way!). You’ll probably even hear it from one of the candidates.

There is no “i” in electoral or electoral college.

Now, of course, if you’re one of those people who believes that a mistake repeated often enough is no mistake–it’s new acceptable usage–then you might think electorial is a word. (Think dictionary.com, where electorial has a definition of electoral.)

Being a meteorologist and writer, I sometimes confuse myself, so let’s be clear: This is a language-related weather post, not a weather-related language post!

Do They Want Hurricanes to Strengthen?

Am I the only one who is disturbed by how often meteorologists (degree in meteorology) and weather presenters (“I’m not a meteorologist, but I play on tv”) make it sound as if they want tropical storms and hurricanes to strengthen?

I watched a Weather Channel update a couple of days ago on Tropical Storm Isaac, which could become Hurricane Isaac, and I heard several references that made it sound as if it would be a good thing for the storm to strengthen.

The upper-levels were not conducive to the storm developing.

Dry air being pulled into the storm was going to slow development.

Interaction with Cuba would slow its development to hurricane strength.

The broad circulation was preventing a rapid intensification.

The westward track was making it less likely to move up the East Coast.

Based on those statements, you might conclude that it would be good for the storm to strengthen and slam into the East Coast. The statements were all phrased in the negative (negative for the storm), but they all sounded like positive points to me, except for the regions that were going to be affected by the more westward movement.

Storm’s Perspective

Most people don’t want to see death and destruction from storms, of course, but it is worth nothing that there are a few ego-driven meteorologists who would much rather be correct about a forecast even if it means more destruction than be wrong about a forecast and have it be less destructive. That’s too bad, but it’s also not the point here.

The point is that since meteorologists dictate the tone of the discussion, they do it from the perspective that they care about (the perspective of the storm) instead of the perspective that is most important to the audience (the potential effects of the storm). For the record, I’m sure that I’ve been guilty of it myself.

And what better way to come back from a break than by focusing on the most important way to improve communication: Keep it simple and direct.

Seriously, communication that is riddled with extra words, unnecessarily complicated language, and indirect thoughts (which seems to be every work email being sent today!) is muddled, boring, and difficult to comprehend.

On the other hand, every communication that is stripped of unnecessary words, simplified, and direct is a pleasure to read and easy to understand.